The present invention relates generally to a method for providing enhanced quality of service for networks, and more particularly to a method for providing enhanced quality of service for a client device that accesses a network via a single connection to a Point Of Presence server.
Many users connect to the Internet, also known as "world wide web", via a switched communication line coupled to a dial-up modem. As used herein the term Internet refers to a large distributed network comprised of interconnected processors (servers) and routers wherein data passes through several routers, before reaching its intended destination (e.g., an applications server). For Internet access devices, such as a personal computer or so-called "web television" device, the entry point to the Internet is usually a Point Of Presence (POP) terminal server. From the POP terminal server, the user of the device can access any applications server in the network.
Today, many users are attempting to transfer to their web access devices, large amounts of data or files, such as Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML) text, graphics or animated image files using formats such as, Graphics Interchange Format (GIF) files, real time audio files or multimedia (video and audio) files. These files are typically very large, bit-intensive files. As used herein the term "download" refers to a file transfer from the applications server through the Internet or other large distributed network, to the POP terminal server and from the POP terminal server to the user.
One of Internet users' most common complaints is the delay experienced by dial-up modem Internet users in their attempt to download bit-intensive files to their web access devices. The aforementioned delay is sometimes so severe that the process of downloading audio and video information is frustrating to the point that dial-up modem Internet users end up terminating the process before most of the file is downloaded. In summary, almost all Internet access providers are unable to guarantee to their subscribers a given (QOS) Quality of Service (i.e., performance requirement for delivery of data within a given time window).
In response to this problem, many solutions have been proposed to guarantee a given QOS for Internet service. For example, some systems engineers have suggested that timely data delivery over the Internet can be achieved by significantly increasing the bandwidth of the links in the shared IP backbone. Unfortunately, even an over-engineered Internet backbone may not result in smooth transfers of real-time information (e.g., audio and video) due to the inherent nature of the IP protocol itself which allows only "best effort" attempts at data delivery.
Another technique for solving the delays inherent in transferring data from an applications server to a web access device involves the use of an additional, separate plain old telephone service (POTS) circuit-switched connection to couple the applications server to the web access device. While useful, this technique requires a user to have two individual telephone lines and two separate modems, both of which being available at once. Unfortunately, most users do not have this capability. Thus, a problem of the prior art is the lack of an efficient, cost-effective and practical method for significantly reducing delay over a connection that couples a web access device to an applications server.